


shadows and light conspiring

by princegrantaire



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Gender Confusion, Identity Reveal, Kind of!, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 07:38:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17463341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princegrantaire/pseuds/princegrantaire
Summary: Another incoherent scream follows. “That you’re not a guy, duh! Do you know how confusing it’s been? Five goddamn years!” Joker wipes away some blood from her nose with the back of her hand, wisely doesn’t electrocute herself in the process. It’s not quite that easy to wipe away five years’ worth of convoluted feelings and desire mixed with something other than hatred.(Joker finds out Batman is a woman. She's fine with it.)





	shadows and light conspiring

**Author's Note:**

> fem!batjokes au incoming! not much context needed here but for some visuals i have drawn the girls a couple of times (excuse the ever-changing designs but you get the general idea) [here,](http://ufonaut.tumblr.com/post/180491238353/some-fem-batjokes-for-u-fellas) [here](http://ufonaut.tumblr.com/post/181784346503/some-more-attempts-at-fem-batjokes) [and here](http://ufonaut.tumblr.com/post/182092906903/miss-jackie-napier-and-her-soon-to-be-future-self)
> 
> also just to be clear, batman looks...like batman usually does so while bryce certainly isn't hiding the fact that she's a gorl she's also completely indifferent about it. the league doesnt yet know on account of her never interacting with anyone ever in her life
> 
> extra thanks for conceptz to my bestest buddy @slaapkat and mine beloved gf @permaclown on tumblr

It’s another moonlit rooftop. No variations on a theme here. Joker’s freezing but, more acutely, she’s bleeding. There’s no time to categorize all the little aches and stings -- a broken nose is guaranteed and that’s as far as she gets before The Batman bears down on her again.

Joker laughs until she can’t under all that crushing weight. There’s a knife a couple of feet away. She pants, doesn’t quite struggle and wishes, not for the first time, that she’d bothered planning more than a minute ahead.

And here an opportunity presents itself.

The Batman hesitates, doesn’t slam Joker’s head against concrete with wild abandon. He’s panting too, this Dark Knight. A split second is all she needs. Joker goes right in for the kill, presses the joy buzzer hidden in her glove against The Batman’s neck with a magician’s flourish. The white lenses on the cowl, perplexingly enough, flicker.

On and off. On and off. Several seconds too long.

She pulls back then.

“ _Fuck!_ ” isn’t what Joker expects to hear, certainly not in what’s clearly a woman’s voice. The Batman stares. Joker herself stares. There’s very little to be understood here.

It’s harder to breathe now but it’s not too much of a relief either when Batman springs up.

Batman.

 _The_ Batman.

The Batman who is apparently a _woman_.

“Five years!” Joker shouts, some undue sense of injustice pouring out of her, bitter and cruel like that first night. “We’ve been doing this for five years and you’ve never once thought to tell me that--” A sort of long-winded _aaaaaaaaaaaaaa_ escapes her then. When Joker finally pulls herself up, noting the possibility of a sprained ankle, Batman’s still staring.

“Tell you what?” Batman asks, wary. It’s that voice again. Deep but unmistakably feminine, still faintly out of breath. Her-- _Her_ lenses have gone wide. It’s genuine confusion she’s playing at.

Another incoherent scream follows. “That you’re not a guy, duh! Do you know _how_ confusing it’s been? Five goddamn years!” Joker wipes away some blood from her nose with the back of her hand, wisely _doesn’t_ electrocute herself in the process. It’s not quite that easy to wipe away five years’ worth of convoluted feelings and desire mixed with something other than hatred.

“What.” Batman doesn’t ask, of course. It’s nice to know familiarity prevails in the face of disaster. “I wasn’t hiding it.”

It’s Joker’s turn to stare now. She tilts her head, brushes a few stray strands of that short shock of green hair off her forehead. It’s hard, just now, to parse exactly what Batman’s been saying. “You… weren’t hiding it?” She flails, just for a second. “Your name is literally The Bat _man_!”

The lack of voice modulator, and Joker understands that’s what she must’ve shorted out, gives way to any number of vague, confused sounds that have rarely made it through before.

“No, it’s not.” Batman crosses her arms. Joker’s got about an inch on her but never fails to find The Bat anything less than intimidating. It’s _exhilarating_ , it always is. “Everyone calls me the World’s Greatest Detective.”

So.

Maybe.

It’s not _that_ exhilarating right now.

Joker groans.

“Oh my god,” she breathes out. The Batman’s lenses narrow. “Oh my god, I think I’m in love with you.” She wipes at her nose again and eyes the knife still on the ground. Choices. Never Joker’s strong suit.

There’s a hint of amusement still egging her on. God, Joker wants to laugh. Good and hard. Batman’s a woman. It feels like victory in itself.

“No, you’re not,” comes Batman’s clipped reply. She still hasn’t moved. It’s understandable, Joker thinks. She wouldn’t move either if she’d just stumbled onto this kind of epiphany. In fact, she can’t tell why she’s fidgeting so much just now -- by all accounts, shock should’ve taken care of that one. “Why…”

It’s another moment until Batman collects her thoughts. Joker just stares. Breathes it all in.

“Why would anyone call me Batman?”

Joker chokes on nothing. Coincidentally, she’s also too busy fiddling with her waistcoat to look the Batman in the eye. “There’s a bat on your chest,” she finally whispers, accompanied by a very limp gesture. It occurs to Joker, distantly, that there must be something resembling a bulletproof vest there, underneath the bat, betraying no--

Right.

“That’s not a bat.” Batman looks down at her own chest. “That’s just me going…” She flares out her cape. It’s a remarkably thorough argument; the cape arranged just so, a faraway flash of lightning.

“Uh. Yeah. Listen, Bats--”

“Or _that_! The Bat!” The cape sinks down, Batman’s silhouette regains its indistinct blob-like charm. “I’ve never heard Bat _man_ though. That’s weird.”

“ _You’re_ weird,” Joker replies, instinctively, and then pretends she doesn’t catch the twist of Batman’s mouth. “So, we’re just the same, huh?” Her voice drops towards what might count as seductive, if not for Joker’s insistence on closing the distance between them and poking one of the cowl’s ears.

“This changes nothing, Joker.”

“Oh, sure it does!” She throws an arm around Batman, delighted, animated even, spiting the bruises and cuts and the odd bloodstain here and there. “You know I’m ga--”

Batman looks positively anguished. It’s nearly impressive, what with only half her face on display.

Joker shuts up then.

First time for everything.

“Does this mean I have to go back to Arkham?” she finds herself asking. There’s no dread here. Not yet.

“Do you recognise my voice?”

There is, apparently, honour among clowns. Joker considers it and shakes her head. She doesn’t, really. There’s a soft undertone, something warm, that she thinks she’d _like_ to know but not one she’s heard before. “No,” she finally decides. The Batman breathes out a sigh, relief intermixed with… Joker can’t place it. She doesn’t want to say disappointment. It can’t be.

“Then it’s back to Arkham.”

It seems vital, then and there, not to lose sight of what she’s been granted tonight. The asylum hardly matters now. The weight of Batman’s hand on Joker’s shoulder, the measure of love that’s just been unburied. That’s what she gets.

It might even be trust.

**Author's Note:**

> lmk if u liked it! find me on tumblr @ufonaut


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